Tar Sands Pipeline Delay Makes Room for Alternatives

Montreal and Toronto – Conservationists celebrated news that Enbridge will shelve its controversial “Trailbreaker” project to reverse the flow of oil in the Montreal-Sarnia pipeline in order to bring tar sands oil to and through Montreal for export. Groups see this decision as an opportunity

“This is a great opportunity,” said Steven Guilbeault, Deputy Executive Director of Équiterre. “Ontario and Québec spend tens of billions of dollars each year to secure a piece of the increasingly unstable supply of an energy commodity whose long-term price projection is skyrocketing. We must start making the transition away from fossil fuels and pursue aggressive energy security policies that are both sustainable, make sense economically, create green jobs at home while fighting climate change.”

The Trailbreaker project would have brought tar sands oil to Quebec for the first time and ultimately made Ontario almost entirely dependent on tar sands oil by cutting off access to sources of oil other than Alberta. “Ontarians just dodged a bullet with the shelving of this project,” said Matt Price, Project Manager with Environmental Defence. “Trailbreaker would take away Ontarians choice of oil – it would be dirty oil from the tar sands and nothing else.”

The Enbridge announcement comes just as a new report on Trailbreaker is being released: Freedom from Dirty Oil: Ontario’s Tar Sands Decision. The report highlights how Ontario can save billions on oil and create jobs by investing in urban infill, transit, vehicle efficiency and low carbon fuels, and avoid dependency on tar sands oil.

“The federal government has allowed the tar sands to become the most destructive project on Earth,” said Gillian McEachern, Senior Energy Campaigner with ForestEthics. “Unless aggressive action is taken on the tar sands we will be on guard to oppose Trailbreaker again should it resurface.”

The new report Freedom from Dirty Oil is available at www.environmentaldefence.ca and www.forestethics.org